Linux on a win 98 box

[ShippMA]

Hi,

I want to put linux on my win 98SE machine. (MSI Motherboard, 256 Mb SDRAM, Athlon 900) I understand that i need to create a seperate partition for it and that is not hard. I was planning to make the partition a fat 32 one. I have found a site where i can download red hat 8.0 it is:

http://www.redhat.com/download/howto....html#download

So i feel all set. But i have never used linux before. The questions i have are as follows:-

How big should i make the partition, my disk is 27.9 gig and i am currently using 2.21 of it?

Is this the best version of linux for me to use or does anyone recommend a different one?

Is this a good site to get it from or again does anyone know of a better one?

How do i set the computer to boot to an option of whether to use Windows or linux?

Will i be able to see the linux partition in windowsa and visa versa?

I'm sorry if these questions seem a bit mundane or simple but i want to make sure that i get it right first time.

Thanks for your help

ShippMA

P.S. sorry that it's not security related but i'm starting a web project using Databases etc for my degree so more than likely i will have lots of security questions to ask in the future

[ShippMA]

Hi,

I want to put linux on my win 98SE machine. (MSI Motherboard, 256 Mb SDRAM, Athlon 900) I understand that i need to create a seperate partition for it and that is not hard. I was planning to make the partition a fat 32 one. I have found a site where i can download red hat 8.0 it is:

http://www.redhat.com/download/howto....html#download

So i feel all set. But i have never used linux before. The questions i have are as follows:-

How big should i make the partition, my disk is 27.9 gig and i am currently using 2.21 of it?

Is this the best version of linux for me to use or does anyone recommend a different one?

Is this a good site to get it from or again does anyone know of a better one?

How do i set the computer to boot to an option of whether to use Windows or linux?

Will i be able to see the linux partition in windowsa and visa versa?

I'm sorry if these questions seem a bit mundane or simple but i want to make sure that i get it right first time.

Thanks for your help

ShippMA

P.S. sorry that it's not security related but i'm starting a web project using Databases etc for my degree so more than likely i will have lots of security questions to ask in the future

[Maverick811]

OK, you are right about creating a separate partition for Linux. However, you don't want to format that partition as FAT32, because Linux uses a completely different file system. If you own a copy of Partition Magic, you can create and format the second partition for the Linux file system, or you could let the Linux install take care of all that for you.

As far as size for the new partition, that will depend on how much of the packages you will be installing with Red Hat. If it was me, I'd set aside at least 10GB on that 28GB drive you have now for Linux. Red Hat is generally recommended for users who are new to Linux, and I'll just add that all of my experience with Red Hat has been great. Red Hat can configure itself and your Windows partition for booting on the install, using one the boot manager programs that come with Red Hat. I've done that several times and never had a problem with it. One of my machines had Windows 98SE, Windows 2000 Pro, and Red Hat 7.2 and I never had any problems with multiple boots.

Hope this helps a little...


Oh yea, just a side note - in the future, try posting in the correct forum - this forum is for questions regarding AntiOnline itself....

[Maverick811]

OK, you are right about creating a separate partition for Linux. However, you don't want to format that partition as FAT32, because Linux uses a completely different file system. If you own a copy of Partition Magic, you can create and format the second partition for the Linux file system, or you could let the Linux install take care of all that for you.

As far as size for the new partition, that will depend on how much of the packages you will be installing with Red Hat. If it was me, I'd set aside at least 10GB on that 28GB drive you have now for Linux. Red Hat is generally recommended for users who are new to Linux, and I'll just add that all of my experience with Red Hat has been great. Red Hat can configure itself and your Windows partition for booting on the install, using one the boot manager programs that come with Red Hat. I've done that several times and never had a problem with it. One of my machines had Windows 98SE, Windows 2000 Pro, and Red Hat 7.2 and I never had any problems with multiple boots.

Hope this helps a little...


Oh yea, just a side note - in the future, try posting in the correct forum - this forum is for questions regarding AntiOnline itself....

[r3b00+]

Id set aside about 10GB of that for you Linux distro

Redhat is a good distro to begin with, very good GUI, so try it out first and see what you think.

Well its the official Redhat site so you shouldnt have any problems, they have alot of mirrors on the site too, so search for a good one.

When you bootup the pc, Redhat will have the two OS's for you to choose from.

Dont know.

Here is a good site for all you newbie linux needs LINUXNEWBIE

Hope i helped a wee bit

r3b00+

[r3b00+]

Id set aside about 10GB of that for you Linux distro

Redhat is a good distro to begin with, very good GUI, so try it out first and see what you think.

Well its the official Redhat site so you shouldnt have any problems, they have alot of mirrors on the site too, so search for a good one.

When you bootup the pc, Redhat will have the two OS's for you to choose from.

Dont know.

Here is a good site for all you newbie linux needs LINUXNEWBIE

Hope i helped a wee bit

r3b00+

[Zonewalker]

hi

some answers/opinions as follows,

how big should the partitions be.... well really this is entirely up to you, personally being as you have 27.9 gigs free I'd make a partition of about 10gigs for linux... this'll give you a reasonable amount of room for both OS's

which version.. again this is really down to personal choice. but Redhat or Mandrake (which is originally based on RH) are what are usually used by those new to linux (I'm using Mandrake 8.1 at the moment for example - tried an earlier version of RH and found it aesthetically not to my liking) some may recommend other variants. I've not used RH 8 but I've heard its reasonably newbie friendly. Since linux is well.... free.... in most cases this allows you to try out several variants and decide whats best for you.

yes this is a good site but also look at

http://www.linux.org
http://www.redhat.com

others will likely suggest lots of other sites... use google to find others

The boot loader that linux installs (usually GRUB or LILO) will give you the options of which OS to load upon boot... this is done as part of the install process and shows when you reboot....normally defaults to linux but this can be changed in linuxconf

yes you will be able to see windows from linux (and linux from windows - IF linux is on a FAT32 partition - if you use Linux native file system ext2 and ext3 then you may have a few more problems)

bit pushed for time so I've prolly missed something out here..... in fact sure I have.... no doubt someone else will pick me up on it

hope this helps


Z



<edit> oh I see I have already been beaten to this .... just to clarify maverick tho'... you can use FAT32 to install linux on... but if you do Linux does suffer quite a big performance hit... it is better to install to linux's native partition if you can

[Zonewalker]

hi

some answers/opinions as follows,

how big should the partitions be.... well really this is entirely up to you, personally being as you have 27.9 gigs free I'd make a partition of about 10gigs for linux... this'll give you a reasonable amount of room for both OS's

which version.. again this is really down to personal choice. but Redhat or Mandrake (which is originally based on RH) are what are usually used by those new to linux (I'm using Mandrake 8.1 at the moment for example - tried an earlier version of RH and found it aesthetically not to my liking) some may recommend other variants. I've not used RH 8 but I've heard its reasonably newbie friendly. Since linux is well.... free.... in most cases this allows you to try out several variants and decide whats best for you.

yes this is a good site but also look at

http://www.linux.org
http://www.redhat.com

others will likely suggest lots of other sites... use google to find others

The boot loader that linux installs (usually GRUB or LILO) will give you the options of which OS to load upon boot... this is done as part of the install process and shows when you reboot....normally defaults to linux but this can be changed in linuxconf

yes you will be able to see windows from linux (and linux from windows - IF linux is on a FAT32 partition - if you use Linux native file system ext2 and ext3 then you may have a few more problems)

bit pushed for time so I've prolly missed something out here..... in fact sure I have.... no doubt someone else will pick me up on it

hope this helps


Z



<edit> oh I see I have already been beaten to this .... just to clarify maverick tho'... you can use FAT32 to install linux on... but if you do Linux does suffer quite a big performance hit... it is better to install to linux's native partition if you can

[owensleftfoot]

I would recommend mandrake rather than redhat. There isnt a lot of difference between the two but mandrake has an easier installation. You dont need to partition your disk before hand - mandrake will offer to shrink your fat32 partition to whatever size you want and install linux in the remaining space. It will also install a boot loader - I think its grub by default. This gives you a menu at boot up to choose between win9x & linux. You can easily view/use your fat32 partition from linux but not the other way around without 3rd party tools. But you dont really need to. You can copy files between ext2 and fat32 from linux.

[owensleftfoot]

I would recommend mandrake rather than redhat. There isnt a lot of difference between the two but mandrake has an easier installation. You dont need to partition your disk before hand - mandrake will offer to shrink your fat32 partition to whatever size you want and install linux in the remaining space. It will also install a boot loader - I think its grub by default. This gives you a menu at boot up to choose between win9x & linux. You can easily view/use your fat32 partition from linux but not the other way around without 3rd party tools. But you dont really need to. You can copy files between ext2 and fat32 from linux.